Five Dutch Architects join IDEAS CITY Detroit

Mon, Apr 25 - Sat, Apr 30  2016

IDEAS CITY Detroit

From April 25 until April 30, five Dutch architects will be part of IDEAS CITY‘s new studio laboratory in Detroit.

The event, founded by the New School Museum in New York, will be a five-day immersive and collaborative studio laboratory, which invites emerging cultural practitioners, duos and collectives working at the intersection of urbanism, art, design, community and technology to create provocative strategies designed for practical implementation. 

While Kunlé Adeyemi will be speaking at the event, Nick Axel, Merve Bedir, Afaina de Jong, and Jason Hilgefort are participating fellows. During the five-day studio laboratory, fellows will live and work together on-site, providing for intense collaboration, creativity, and learning. This immersive environment will seed the development of strategies and projects to tackle key urban issues distinct to the city, such as land stewardship, affordable housing, mobility, and historic preservation.

Kunlé Adeyemi

Kunlé Adeyemi is an architect, urbanist, and founder of NLÉ, an architecture, design, and urbanism practice focused on developing cities and communities. He began his early practice in Nigeria, before joining the world renowned Dutch Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) in 2002. At OMA, working closely with founder Rem Koolhaas for nearly a decade, he led the design, development and execution of numerous projects in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East. His recent work Makoko Floating School is a prototype for building in African regions that have little or no permanent infrastructure and is located on the lagoon of Lagos, Nigeria. 

Nick Axel

Nick Axel is a writer and researcher based in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Since graduating from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute with a B.Arch and minor in philosophy, Nick has worked, published and exhibited in leading international architecture venues. He is managing editor of Volume magazine, interactive specialist at Forensic Architecture, and guest lecturer in the Faculty of Archutecture and Urbanism at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar. Axel’s work spans the practices of criticism, research, cartography, and design, and has been published widely. He has lectured at Strelka Institute, Design Academy Eindhoven, and the Bartlett, University College London.

Merve Bedir

Merve Bedir is an architect and researcher based in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. She is a PhD candidate on behavior and consumption at the Delft University of Technology and a partner at Land+Civilization Compositions, a studio that focuses on urbanism through the lens of artistic practice. Bedir codirects the Shenzhen Architecture Biennial’s educational program and is a contributor to Volume magazine and the Funambulist. She has several publications about urban transformation, sustainable development, and user behavior and energy consumption.

Afaina de Jong

Afaina de Jong is an architect and writer based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. De Jong believes in the practice of an active architecture that goes beyond just making buildings. She is a PhD candidate at the Delft University of Technology and the founder of AFARAI, a design studio that focuses on urban strategies and the do-it-yourself city. This urban design agency not only designs, but also develops content: from events to brand communication. De Jong is the author of “For the People, by the People” and has been a contributing editor of MARK magazine.

Jason Hilgefort

Jason Hilgefort is an urbanist and architect based in Rotterdam, Istanbul, and Shenzen. His work experience ranges from New York (Ehrenkrantz Eckstut and Kuhn), to Los Angeles (Behnisch Architekten) to Mumbai (Rahul Mehrotra).  He is the founder of Land+Civilization Compositions, a design studio that develops approaches to urbanism using artistic practice. Hilgefort codirects the Shenzhen Architecture Biennial’s educational program and is a regular contributor to uncube magazine.

About IDEAS CITY

IDEAS CITY is a collaborative, civic and creative enterprise founded by the New Museum. Its focus is the city: investigating key issues, proposing solutions, and seeding concrete actions. Starting from the premise that art and culture are essential to future vitality of cities, IDEAS CITY provides a crucial platform for designers, artists, technologists and policymakers to exchange ideas, identify challenges, create strategies, and engage the public’s participation. 

About New Museum

Founded in 1977, the New Museum is a leading destination for new art and new ideas. It began as an idea in the mind of founding Director Marcia Tucker. As a curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art from 1967 through 1976, Tucker observerd firsthand that new work by living artists was not easily assimilated into the conventional exhibition and collection structure of the traditional art museum. Her ideas resulted into Manhattan’s only dedicated contemporary art museum, which is respected internationally for the adventurousness and global scope of its curatorial program.